How Act! Can Help You to "Get Your Act Together"

Karen is the author of thirteen books on CRM and the Act! lynda.com training videos. She is the founder of the Virtual ACT! Users Group and holds quarterly webinars focusing on CRM best practices. Her goal is to make companies more efficient, productive and profitable through best CRM practices.

Act! software can benefit any type of business. It’s never too late to get started building processes into your database that will make you more productive and profitable. Using your Act! database as an electronic rolodex and calendar is not a viable option, particularly if you find that contacts and opportunities are “falling through the cracks.” Follow these tips to transition your Act! database to a lean, mean, powerful CRM system!

Segment your Contacts. Act! comes with a cool field named ID/Status which is designed to help you segment your database into Prospects, Customers and Vendors. Use it. If you need additional segmentation for your contacts such as Industry or Territory, Create it. Act! should reflect the way your business looks at contacts.

Record History. Act! comes with a great big History button in the middle of the icon bar. Use it. This button is meant to document every transaction you have with your contacts, especially Calls and Meetings. As an extra bonus, a number of system fields will automatically update when you record histories.

Create Dynamic Groups. Once you have segmented your contacts and recorded histories you can start relying on Dynamic Groups to take your organizational skills to the next level. Want to follow up on prospects every month? Create a Group. Need to call your best customers every quarter? Create a Group. Need to send out renewal notices? Create a Group!

Send Early and Often. Set up a weekly, monthly and/or quarterly marketing schedule. Professionals know that contacting past customers and current leads at just the right time can result in increased revenue. Combining Act’s integrated Act! emarketing platform with Dynamic Groups leaves you with no excuse not to be reaching out to your contacts on a regular basis.

You Can Take It with You. With Act! you are not tied to your desk. Act! uses a multi-platform approach to CRM that offers connectivity to your database from any device. Never forget another commitment you’ve made; with Act!’s hosted solution your database is available on your workstation, through any browser and on all of your mobile devices.